


no rest for the weary

by cerealmilk



Series: there's blood in the water [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Explicit Language, F/F, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, STRIKE COMMANDER PHARAH, Slow Burn, Survivor Guilt, let mercy sleep, she's so tired
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-10-04 23:34:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10292525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerealmilk/pseuds/cerealmilk
Summary: When Overwatch fell apart, torn by its two prideful leaders and put down by the PETRAS Act, Angela Ziegler's world was reduced to ruins. Which is why, now that it's back, she is determined to keep it that way; intact, prosperous, healthy. She doesn't mind taking on the burdens of resident physician as well as team support, as long her family is kept together.But Overwatch is different, now. A different roster of heroes, new memories gained, new horrors witnessed in the ten years it has been apart. One member in particular has Angela worried— a young soldier by the name of D.Va. D.Va brings about a certain instability, a certain hostility, an instigator of buried anger amongst the members of Overwatch. Her youth is a constant debate within ranks, and her rash decisions and worrisome habits have made for heated arguments among the older members.The family Angela has worked so hard to fix is falling apart again, and she will do everything in her power to ensure that it doesn't.





	1. for the records

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all thought season 1 was bad well now here's season 2. it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
> 
> if you're a revisitor from part one of the trilogy, then welcome back! you know the plot but this time it's from the point of view of our favorite cup of salt. if you're new, hello! this might not make much sense but can be read without reading its predecessor, _The Young Never Sleep._ either way, i recommend reading TYNS at some point in time just to fill in the plot holes.
> 
> just a heads up: this one's as gory as the last one but its gayer and with more medical terms. the research i do for these things smh
> 
> this chapter is dedicated to my moral support and angst regulator, milchbrot. she's probably screaming at me rn tho so sorry milch
> 
>  
> 
> well, without further ado, _No Rest for the Weary._

There was never war without sacrifice. Angela knew. She had sacrificed so much already– her family and her life and her blood and, God, her sanity— to making the world a better place. And then her team turned on her and it blew up in her face. It wasn't their fault. She knew who was to blame.

For Gérard's death. For Amélie's disappearance. For Ana. For Gabriel. For Overwatch's fall.

But she brought it back. She had fought for Overwatch, and won. Not by choice, but by necessity. 

Angela loved Overwatch. How could she not? If not by choice, then by circumstance, at the very least. She had poured her life's work into this organization. Every single adaptation of her legendary medical breakthroughs had stemmed from there. When the PETRAS Act shut it down, it had winded her. Ripped the rug out from beneath her. Hell, it had torn away the whole damn carpet. 

Which was why, now that it was back, she was determined to keep it that way; intact, prosperous, healthy. She didn't mind taking on the burdens of resident physician as well as team support, as long her family was kept close together. She would gladly pay any price. Such tenacious desire had been the source of her willingness to make further strides in her laborious research. Logically, she knew it was selfish of her, to try to keep them close for the sake of her own sanity, but desperation had almost driven her over the edge too many times during the ten years of Overwatch's disbandment.

These burdens were her birthright, family the core of her convictions. In the end, the pain was worth it. Sometimes, the pain was overwhelming. Sometimes, the world was too much. But it was worth it.

While she did carry many of Overwatch's responsibilities between her shoulders, there were many things that she kept her nose out of. Things she cared less for until presented to her directly, or unless she was asked for an input.

These responsibilities included (but were not restricted to) the chain of command, foreign affairs, mission assignment, and recruitment.

In terms of chain of command, she had been told many times she was fit for the position of strike commander. That she would make a good leader. She declined the offers— the others might have thought they knew her, but she knew herself well enough to know that leadership was not her forte. Her opinion, as the medical specialist, was still valued. She was respected most, and this she knew well, which was generally why she kept her voice out of such matters, because she knew that anything she said would be treated with the utmost importance.

In terms of foreign affairs, public speaking made her anxious and she was well known for avoiding press and social events if she could. She was a woman of grace, seen as expensive by many, but that was what they needed to perceive, she knew. In reality, she was a woman of simple tastes, a woman of chocolate and hypodermic needles, and a woman who rather detested social events of any kind. 

In terms of mission assignment, she found that she didn't particularly mind where she or the others were assigned so long as it wasn't suicide. Her logic only delved so far into that minor concern— she trusted Winston, and she trusted Reinhardt. The two of them, alongside Jack, with whom she was still trying to rekindle some semblance of trust, had more or less formed the spearhead of the new Overwatch.

In terms of recruitment, that labor had been decidedly thrown upon Winston, and she trusted the gorilla to logically choose worthy, skilled candidates to add to their remarkable roster. She trusted him not to make any decisions that would bring about harm, regret, or the fragmentation of old bonds she had worked hand and foot to reforge.

She trusted Winston to make wise decisions when bringing in a new age of heroes. Which was why, when he brought one HSI Captain Fareeha Amari to her doorstep, dolled up in a sharp blue suit and bearing a familiar smile, awkwardly requesting a physical exam, she couldn't be happier to do so.

Why, when he brought in the decorated Russian soldier Aleksandra Zaryanova and her old friend and climatologist Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou, she had no questions.

Why she had no opposition when he recruited the worldwide rebel Lúcio Correia dos Santos, the elder Shimada, Hanzo, and Genji's omnic mentor, Tekhartha Zenyatta. She didn't blink twice.

She trusted Winston to recruit only the best of the best, the sharpest warriors who were dedicated to the greater good of the world. But when he brought D.Va, the nineteen year old prodigy in Korean warfare, whose grin was far too broad to be anything but feral, whose dark eyes spoke of unforgettable things, whose posture and salute were far too rigid and practiced and perfect for someone so young, that trust faltered.

So, she supposed, the more accurate statement was that she  _used_  to trust Winston. Until one gamer-slash-soldier strode into the medical bay and snapped a salute, and all Angela saw was a disaster waiting to unfold.

It was with hesitance that she brought out her data pad, pulling up the necessary forms for a physical. 

"Name?" she asked, gesturing to the medical bed so that the young soldier could have a seat.

"D.Va!" her patient chirped in response. Could anyone's voice be so naturally high pitched?

Angela faltered, glancing upwards over the top of her reading glasses, brows drawing close in befuddlement. "I need your real name. For the records," she said, careful. Her patients usually were better equipped with knowledge as to how these things proceeded.

The young woman's eyes glinted with something wild and dangerous that Angela immediately did not want to awaken.

"Just D.Va will be fine," the young soldier replied coolly, the grin unwavering. "And I'm nineteen years old. My general appearance is well developed, well nourished, alert, and cooperative. I am not in any obvious distress. Throw them at me, doc. I'm here for a physical, not an interrogation. This isn't personal."

Angela hesitated. "Well," she said, at a length, typing the information down onto the datapad with much reluctance. "I suppose we should move on, if it really isn't that important to you. However, I would like you to cooperate as best you can from here on out. This is a professional and strictly medical matter. Hiding anything will do neither of us any good." She glanced set the lad off to the side and straightened her pristine white lab coat, turning to ace her patient fully. "Now, D.Va, if you would please roll up your sleeves..."

  

**PHYSICAL EXAM NO. 43**

**PATIENT NAME: D.Va(?)**

**AGE: 19**

**SEX: female**

**GENERAL APPEARANCE: Well developed, well nourished, alert and somewhat cooperative. Signs of distress apparent.**

**HEAD: normocephalic**

**EYES: 20/20. Vision is normal and intact.**

**EARS: External auditory canals and tympanic membranes clear, hearing intact.**

**NOSE: No nasal discharge.**

**THROAT: Oral cavity and pharynx normal. no inflammation, swelling, exudate, or lesions. Teeth and gingiva in good general condition.**

**NECK: Neck supple, non-tender without lymphadenopathy, masses or thyromegaly.**

**CARDIAC: Normal S1 and S2. No S3, S4 or murmurs. Rhythm is regular. There is no peripheral edema, cyanosis or pallor. extremities are warm and well perfused. Capillary refill is less than 2 seconds. No carotid bruits.**

**LUNGS: Clear to auscultation and percussion without rales, rhonchi, wheezing or diminished breath sounds.**

**ABDOMEN: Positive bowel sounds. Soft, nondistended, nontender. No guarding or rebound. No masses.**

**MUSCULOSKELETAL: Adequately aligned spine. ROM intact spine and extremities. No joint erythema or tenderness. Normal muscular development.**

**BACK: Examination of the spine reveals normal gait and rigid posture, no spinal deformity, symmetry of spinal muscles, without tenderness, decreased range of motion or muscular spasm. Slight slouch when sitting.**

**EXTREMITIES: No significant deformity or joint abnormality. No edema. Peripheral pulses intact. No varicosities.**

**LOWER EXTREMITY: Examination of both feet reveals all toes to be normal in size and symmetry, normal range of motion, normal sensation with distal capillary filling of less than 2 seconds without tenderness, swelling, discoloration, nodules, weakness or deformity; examination of both ankles, knees, legs, and hips reveals normal range of motion, normal sensation without tenderness, swelling, discoloration, crepitus, weakness or deformity.**

**NEUROLOGICAL: CN II-XII intact. Strength and sensation symmetric and intact throughout. Reflexes 2+ throughout. Cerebellar testing reveals similar signs of distress.**

**SKIN: Skin normal color. Multiple scars apparent on arms and legs.**

**PSYCHIATRIC: The mental examination revealed the patient was oriented to person, place, and time. The patient was able to demonstrate good judgement and reason on a front, without hallucinations or abnormal affect during the examination. Abnormal behaviors include resistance to some information and resistance to mental prodding. Patient is distressed, but claims otherwise. Patient also claims not to be suicidal.**

  

The new members, for the most part, assimilated well with the team. The new Overwatch was different from the past. Smaller, for certain, and younger as a whole. Strategies changed to accommodate new abilities, composition adapting to fresher skill sets. Of course, for the most part was a relative term— there were exceptions, many that Angela noticed, with practiced observance from the sidelines.

Angela, true to her amiable, pacifistic nature, liked to think that she bonded well with most of the recruits— particularly with Fareeha Amari, her old and new flame, the two of them walking a fine line of 'will we, won't we.' In the years Overwatch had been apart, the two had remained in close contact, and had shared many moments together, both innocent and less than so. To see her again, face to face after several long months of separation, was no less familiar, but it was different, now, with Overwatch. For better or worse.

She and Aleksandra didn't much communicate, but they respected each other greatly. Angela could name many missions where the large Russian had saved her life with a well placed particle barrier, or had offered to carry her more burdensome medical gear as she moved research from base to base.

Mei was an old friend, and talking with her was simply picking up where they left off all those years ago. There was no hassle or period of adjustment required for them to click back together. They often spoke of science and pacifism together, of their interests and differences, of their shared dream to make the world a better, safer place.

Lúcio and Zenyatta were welcome additions to the medical bay. Lúcio had a steady hand and an upbeat demeanor that made it very difficult to keep up professionalism in his presence. Zenyatta was a calm face in a riotous sea, and someone whom she often confided in late at night when her past mistakes and failures haunted her most. Having their medical assistance on-field, too, was a colossal relief.

And then, of course, there were the exceptions.

Hanzo was someone who spoke little and was seen less. His presence was something of a ghost in the Watchpoint. It was rare to see him in base. Often, he meditated— either that or he trained. Never did he join the others during meals, and he avoided his brother like the plague. She knew little of him other than what she had for her physical exam, but that was only an exam and did not speak the layers a person could behold.

D.Va was an anomaly. One moment, she was all smiles and camera-talk and the next, when nobody was looking, she was a contorted mass of stifled rage and exhaustion. Angela couldn't tell which side was natural, if it was genuine or if it was a fluke, if it was a disorder or... D.Va. The young soldier was curt and clipped with her teammates, but was highly intelligent. Often, she barked out orders in the heat of battle. Always, those orders were ignored.

Off field, Angela had experimented with one such strategy in the battle simulator. It worked brilliantly. She made a personal vow to try to incorporate these spontaneous orders more often, but she was so rarely put on a strike team with D.Va that such vows were rendered useless.

Speaking of D.Va, Angela had, admittedly, done some prodding into the newest recruit's backstory. Less out of curiosity and more out of concern. A former commander of the ingenious but simultaneously sacrificial MEKA program, with a perfect military record and numerous medals and awards to her name. 

D.Va was a former champion of Starcraft II that, she learned with further research, was a highly strategic and intense game, where you had to immediately identify and adapt to any change in your opponent's offensive or defensive plan.

There was, admittedly, much she had yet to understand, but she was determined to learn her new team, her new family, to keep them together. Even if some, like Hanzo and D.Va, were reluctant. Not that she would ever force them out of their comfort zone, but she would make an attempt in coaxing them out of whatever prevented them from moving past their respective backgrounds.

She had long-since noticed how deeply Hanzo craved contact, but denied himself the pleasure out of guilt for almost killing his own brother. That much was painfully obvious to anyone with a good set of eyes.

D.Va seemed to not want anything to do with Overwatch. Which was odd to the point where Angela had to, again, investigate it herself, somewhat surprised that no one else thought anything was amiss. She pried through several recruitment records from Winston's computer until she found D.Va's file, and reading the document made everything clear.

D.Va did not want to be here at all— she had been assigned. It wasn't a matter of choice. It was a matter of national pride and obligation.

Angela had not anticipated this. Not when she picked up the pieces of herself and decided to do something about the family she adamantly refused to lose. All of the participants she had encountered thus far had been willing to serve— even Gabriel, though the name dredged up things she would rather forget. Never had there been an unwilling member.

She pondered this, sitting at her desk, unaware of the time or how long she had been sitting there.

Anomalies were something she saw much of in medical terms, but D.Va was not a medical term. This was more complex, more human, something beyond her. This was a young soldier of nineteen, with a perfect military record, 368 solo kills, who struck down the Korean Omnic Threat, and had 13 decorations including the Medal of Honor to her name, even after only two years of service. This was a soldier who had been reassigned in an unfamiliar habitat and to an unfamiliar team where she would no longer be in control, where her teammates were all older and whom all demanded respect from someone whose age was more important than her badges.

An anomaly indeed. Was there anything she could do to help D.Va assimilate? The pilot stubbornly avoided contact with her teammates when communication was not absolutely necessary. It was troublesome, even trying to catch the recruit alone in an atmosphere that was anything warmer than frigid.

"Angela?" 

The doctor jolted out of her thoughts, looking up in surprise to her unexpected visitor. 

"Ah, Fareeha," she said, instinctively relaxing. Fareeha's presence was a welcome distraction to her consuming train of thought. "Please, come in. Did you need something?" 

The Egyptian stepped inside, holding up a plastic bag and lightly shaking its contents. "I noticed you missed dinner," she said. "I brought you leftovers, if you're hungry." 

Angela was about to protest the offering, but her stomach growled in protest, angrily reminding her that she hadn't eaten since breakfast, too engaged in her research on their newest and youngest addition. 

"You didn't have to," she said, but it was a weak half-protest as Fareeha grinned and settled down in the extra chair next to hers, taking out two plastic containers of something unfamiliar, but tantalizing. The second box, however, made her quirk a brow. 

"I know you feel awkward eating alone," Fareeha explained, "so I saved my serving to eat with you. It's kimchi— D.Va's cooking. I'm not sure exactly what's in it but it smells good."

Endeared and intrigued, Angela opened her container to peer down at the offered food. "D.Va cooks?" she queried, taking a set of metal utensils from Fareeha's extended hand. "Did she eat with the team?"

Fareeha nodded. "I helped dish up plates. She told me that she used to cook for herself a lot, but cut herself off when she realized she was talking." The Egyptian scooped a bite into her mouth, swallowing with a hum. "Poor kid. She's so uncomfortable around us. I don't really know what I can do to make it any better. Also, no, she took her plate back to her room. Said something about a stream and a Starcraft update." She gestured down to her food. "This is good."

Angela paused a moment before taking a bite. Not her favorite meal, but it wasn't horrible. And, some part of her said, it was substance. Food was something she needed to live, not just coffee and Swiss chocolate.

"I don't think there's much we can do," the doctor murmured, twisting on her chair to face Fareeha. "I think the reason she's so... disclosed— is because she didn't choose to come here. She was assigned by her superiors."

Fareeha gaped. "That's... that's not good," she said, finally, poking at her kimchi. "Oh, fuck. Yeah, that explains a lot. She doesn't want to be here. Honestly, I'm surprised she cooperates as well as she does— she's forcing herself to do this and she's still competent. Great, even. She has a lot of potential." The Egyptian's gaze averted downwards. "I'm simultaneously amazed and horrified. I don't know anyone who could do that— fight for something they don't believe in. 

Angela frowned. "Is it really about belief, though? I got the feeling it was pride. She is a world-famous gamer and renowned idol— I doubt she believes in much aside from herself."

Fareeha blinked at her, shifting uncomfortably. Their knees bumped together, close as they were. "Is it any of our business?" she asked. "We shouldn't sit here and speculate. It feels wrong. Maybe we should just ask her."

Angela shook her head. "She refuses to tell me her real name. She adamantly avoids contact with everyone off the battlefield. Do you really think she would tell me anything that personal?"

Fareeha grimaced. "When you put it like that... no. In my opinion, I say we wait, for now. Let's see if she opens up any over time." 

Angela pondered this for a moment. "I suppose... that's a fair solution. It shouldn't be any of our business unless she decides to make it so."

Fareeha smiled, brown eyes soft with something akin to affection. "Sounds good." 

Angela opted not to respond, something within her trembling at the look in Fareeha's eyes, and she put another bite of kimchi in her mouth to make sure she wouldn't say anything she might regret. 

 

Days passed. And then weeks. Then months. Angela noticed a pattern.

In the beginning, D.Va was unsure, afraid to be herself but too unfamiliar with her surroundings to be anything else. 

Over time, D.Va did not adjust, like she and Fareeha had predicted. Rather, she did quite the opposite.

Over time, D.Va curled inwards, her generally awkward but bright demeanor hardening into something bitter and angry and jagged. From the metaphoric observation deck, where Angela was at a constant, it was an amazing change, to watch something so scared to test the waters morph so quickly into something so malevolent and harsh.

She watched the bags beneath the young soldier's eyes deepen and darken with every passing day. She watched her stumble into the medical bay, bleeding but claiming she was 'A-Okay.' She watched her enter the training deck, waited for her to exit, but always had to retire for the night before she could see when the young woman exited. These habits were worrisome from a medical perspective, questionable from the more considerate side of her.

Once, Angela had mistakenly called the young soldier 'child' during a post-mission check up, and the doctor immediately noted the way D.Va's dark eyes narrowed, invisible walls sprouting between them, the younger woman's expression torn by anger and hurt, and suddenly everything between them was just as clipped and cold as it was with everyone else.

It was then, right then and there, that Angela's concerns were confirmed. Something terrible had happened to D.Va in the past to make her this way, and she would not disclose any information as to what.

 

At some point, during a team meeting during D.Va's third month in Overwatch, a meeting where the pilot had been trying to make herself small, she spoke up— she didn't often do that.

"I installed a self-destruct mode to my mech," D.Va said, her tone hard and final. "I can now launch the shell of my mech forward in the form of a timed explosion to deal with larger threats, while I am ejected outwards from the back. The particles of my mech rematerialize themselves in MEKA's satellite, where I can call it back. I can use it as often as I want, once the particles fully reconstruct themselves." 

The room went vey, very quiet. Angela held her breath, unsure. The silence stretched for a pregnant few seconds, and then there was uproar.

"Are you shitting me, kid?!" Jack snarled, standing abruptly, chair scraping backwards with a groan. "You can't just  _do_  stuff like that here, all willy-nilly without permission! I don't know if you noticed, but you aren't a commander anymore!"

D.Va, too, stood, somehow taller than him, her presence larger and angrier, and again Angela saw a spark of that wild, feral thing in her eyes.

"To my knowledge," she said, calm despite the contortion of her young face, "You aren't a commander anymore, either,  _Soldier: 76_." The pure hatred with which she spat the name made the room fall dead silent once more.

Jack sputtered. "That has nothing to do with—"

"Oh, it has  _everything_  to do with this. You abandoned your title like you  _abandoned_  your organization— I read your file. You are a coward and a poster boy and you have  _no right_  to order me around."

Jack opened and closed his mouth several times. Off to the side, Winston coughed twice in an attempt to save him, and spoke up. "While that may be true, you still need to consult your commanding officers before making—" 

D.Va rounded on him, her voice taking on an even angrier, even hoarser pitch. Suddenly, she looked years older than nineteen. For a moment, Angela looked at her and saw the face of Gabriel Reyes.

" _Fuck you_ ," D.Va roared. "You're some Donkey-Kong rip off from the  _fucking_  moon, of all places, and  _heaven_  knows how you even got back to Earth. You aren't military. You don't even have a  _rank_! You're unfit!  _None_  of you are fit to tell me what to do!"

She released her iron grip on the table, backing away towards the door like a caged animal, a bitter laugh on her lips.

"I am a higher ranking than  _all_  of you, save Captain Amari, Dr. Zhou, and Dr. Ziegler. I only listen to you because I  _have_  to. I created the self-destruct setting because I  _knew_  you would not have allowed it, and I did not ask for permission because your opinion means  _so little_  to me that it wasn't even worth my time."

Her expression twisted from anger, to exhaustion, to hurt, to fear, and then to cool indifference within the span of a second. Angela was stunned into silence.

"We are only teammates because we have to be, Overwatch," the young soldier said, turning her back on them to leave but hesitating in the doorway. "I will play my part. I will follow orders. But if you think for  _one second_  that I will blindly follow you like your predecessors did, you will be  _sorely_  disappointed." 

The door slammed. The sound reminded Angela of a gunshot, and in some ways, perhaps it was.

D.Va, the young MEKA commander, the idol and hero of South Korea, had just shattered everything they thought they knew. Any inkling of control or influence they thought they had over her, she threw away and stomped into dust.

To Fareeha, Angela whispered— 

"I don't know how much longer we can wait," she murmured. "This could get destructive very, very quickly."

Fareeha turned to her discreetly as the rest of Overwatch broke into an argument once more, each voice raising to be louder than the next.

"How can you tell?" the Egyptian hissed back.

Angela's expression darkened, her fingers gripping her work pants tightly. "That look in her eyes," she said. "The last time I saw such a violent state of post-traumatic stress disorder was in Gabriel, and we all know what came of that."

Fareeha frowned, one of her prosthetic hands easing Angela's from her pants and holding it— the gesture was immensely comforting. 

"What do we do?" she asked softly. "What can I do to help?"

Angela glanced at the doorway, where it still seemed to tremble from the violence with which D.Va had slammed the door.

"I do not know," she admitted. "I do not know, Fareeha, and I think that's what terrifies me."

Fareeha ran her thumb across her knuckles, the rubber-like coating on the fingertips of the prosthetic cool and calming. 

"Do you want to head back to my room?" the Egyptian murmured. "I just downloaded several comedies. They're in Arabic, but they should make you laugh."

Angela sighed wearily. A distraction was welcome from her tiresome, endless thoughts of D.Va and Overwatch and her newest and most tedious project yet. 

"That sounds wonderful, Fareeha, but let's see this meeting through to the end. I feel like we will need to calm it down more than once." 

Fareeha nodded. "If you're sure. I don't want you to strain yourself again. You look... overworked."

Angela smiled. In the short three months the two of them had been reunited, Fareeha had already adapted to so much about her.

"I'm sure,  _schatz_." She gave the Egyptian's hand a squeeze before leveling her gaze at the arguing members of the table. When she saw what the meeting had been reduced to, she winced. Lena was almost angrier than Angela had ever seen her. Jack was certainly scowling beneath his rather unnecessary mask, if his knotted eyebrows were anything to go by. Winston was trying, and failing, to play peacekeeper. Sides were being taken. It was Jack and the older members versus Aleksandra, Mei, and Lena. 

This would not end well, this argument of whether or not they should force D.Va to delete the setting.

Angela had to admit, the confession of the self-destruct sequence made her nervous. Was D.Va aware of how dangerous it was? Did she know its potential? Had she made it herself? What if there was a malfunction in the ejection? There were so many risks. Surely, D.Va was aware. Why add it, then? 

The young soldier was an anomaly. Angela was just beginning to realize just how little she knew. 

With a sigh, she stood from her chair, clearing her throat in the process. Immediately, all eyes were on her, mouths closing, teeth biting down on violent tongues to listen to her words.

Angela loved Overwatch. At her core, Overwatch was home. But she knew that, in reviving it, there would be repercussions and differences to the Overwatch she used to know. The months preceding had merely been the green run— this was where the true test began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aAAaaangsty angela pls love urself
> 
> i'm sill trying to figure out a comfortable style for mercy so please bear with me if there are any sudden personality or moral code changes you notice/d.
> 
> good to be back in the angst biz guys.
> 
> \- ace.


	2. resistance and relativity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "ace why do you keep writing d.va in track pants" D.VA IN TRACK PANTS IS MY AESTHETIC I will not be s topped
> 
> also STRIKE COMMANDER PHARAH bc yeaaaaah
> 
> I'm still trying to figure out how to write Mercy and Pharah and Pharmercy together in a way that is equal and good and wholesome hmmm. If any of y'all have ideas or pointers let me know

From there, things only went downhill.

The final decision for D.Va's mech was that she would be allowed to keep and use it, but only in emergencies and only if she notified the team in advance. Even a few seconds' warning was enough time to prepare.

Angela had been the one chosen to break the news, as everyone figured the young soldier would take it best if the word was given by Overwatch's resident physician. Angela did not appreciate being chosen to be such a menial messenger (because surely she meant more to them than that), especially when she had neither consented nor offered her services, but she could see the logic within it, and relented.

When she broke the news, after tracking down D.Va and catching her just before she entered the shooting range, she was met with a guarded, scrutinizing gaze and an impassive expression.

"Fine," the younger woman said at last, her left hand twitching slightly. For a moment, it looked as if she would say more, but she clamped down on her tongue and turned away sharply, the door to the shooting range closing mere inches from Angela's face.

The twitch. Either a gesture showing anger or a limbic response to lying. Either way, it was obvious that the young soldier had not taken the news well.

Angela couldn't tell whether this harsh attitude was more disrespectful or defensive. It was certainly a means to maintain distance from the other members of Overwatch, and a very effective one at that, but was it out of fear or hate? For what reason was this distance maintained? Surely, it had to do something with the betrayed look the soldier had cast her when 'child' had once slipped from her lips, a word meant lightly, but taken seriously.

The doctor sighed. It looked like this would end up being more complex and troublesome than she had initially thought.

 

* * *

 

Fareeha greeted her as soon as she entered the Egyptian's room, still in her lab coat, exhaustion bearing down on her shoulders. She has just finished a long surgery on Lena, who had again been too reckless in the heat of battle and laid the price.

To Fareeha, she hummed, a simple acknowledgement that she had been heard, and fell onto the other woman's bed.

"Long day?" her partner asked, gentle, from where she sat at the foot.

"Lena," Angela muttered into the pillow, and Fareeha let out a soft 'ah' of understanding. "That woman is too reckless for her own good. Also, my lack of sleep these past few days is finally getting to me. My thoughts refuse to quiet." She turned to lie on her side, but was unable to see Fareeha from where she was.

"And you, _schatz?_ " she asked.

The Egyptian shifted where she sat, the mattress bouncing slightly. "Patrol went fine. Jesse and I had a good chat. Thoughts of failure were pressing, though. I've been trying to ignore them, but it is difficult. The memories make it hard to move on."

Angela hummed in recognition. "They always do. Anything I can do to help?"

There was a moment of silence. Angela waited, knowing Fareeha was considering her answer. This was a sensitive topic they often didn't bring up unless it had been a particularly difficult day.

"Stay here, tonight," the Egyptian said, finally, voice mellow, exhaustion peeking through. "I am trying very hard not to disassociate. A present reminder, I think, would help."

Angela smiled lightly. "Of course, Fareeha. Thank you for telling me."

A large, warm hand landed on her shoulder, stroking through the short hairs at the base of her neck and eliciting a soft sigh from her lips.

"You should sleep," Fareeha murmured. "You can borrow some of my clothes, if you would like."

Angela turned her head slightly to meet that familiar, warm brown gaze. "What about the movie?"

Fareeha smiled, callused fingers running through her bangs, and if this carried on much longer then Angela would surely fall asleep.

"I rented it for twenty four hours," the soldier replied easily, tucking her bangs behind her ear. "I will go grab some clothes for you."

Angela leaned into the touch. "Thank you, Fareeha."

Fareeha's eyes flashed again with that private sort of affection, the kind that made Angela's heart clench and her fingertips buzz, but she found herself returning the smile all the same.

  

* * *

 

Vividly, Angela could remember the aftermath of D.Va's first mission. It had been an infiltration of an Omnic terrorist hideout. She remembered well how Lena and Genji had basically dragged the young soldier into the medical bay, how eagerly she had shrugged them off and how she had snarled at them in a furious mixture of English and Korean until they backed away.

Angela had approached with trepidation, careful until D.Va noticed her presence and wheeled to face her. She stood tall despite the two splotches of red on the midsection of her flight suit, her face calm, if not exasperated.

"I don't need medical attention," she said. "I just need a few seconds from the Caduceus staff and then I'll be fine."

Angela frowned. "I beg your pardon?"

D.Va shrugged, one hand acting to cauterize her freely bleeding wounds, the other gesturing carelessly in the air. "You heard me. No knives. No IVs. No surgery, or whatever it was that you were gonna do. Don't you have nano shots? Just load me up with one of those. This is nothing."

Angela looked down at the two bullet holes that had not caused this soldier to even wince, that had caused blood to drop down her pelvis beneath her flight suit, and wondered what extent of horror D.Va had seen if _this_ was considered nothing.

"Unfortunately," she said. "I cannot do that. Please lie down on the table and remove your flight suit. I need full access to the wound— I need to check if there are still bullet fragments. Until I do, I cannot use a nano shot, or else the fragments will be sealed within she skin." Angela tugged on her rubber gloves, her gaze hard and cold. She tried to be flexible for D.Va's sake, an attempt to make the young soldier more welcome, but the medical bay was her domain. D.Va did not know what bullets could do to the body, if left there long enough.

The younger woman regarded her carefully. "I pulled them out on the flight back. The fragments."

Angela shook her head. "Perhaps the large and obvious ones, but a bullet is designed to do damage. Most pieces are microscopic. Although, I suppose, if you want to leave them there, you may have to face being discharged due to injury in the near future because of internal bleeding and infection."

Her words were harsh, but Angela did not think it was the harshness that made D.Va's eyes flash with a sudden, violent wave of panic. It was only for a moment, before the young soldier choked it down and that impassive wall overtook her expression once more.

"Fine," she spat, already working on undoing the belts on her flight suit, tugging up the centerpiece to reveal the wounds. "You'd better not tell anyone, though."

Angela pushed D.Va down onto the table, and picked through her medical tray for a scalpel. "Medical confidentiality," the doctor promised, and D.Va's gaze was still suspicious, so she continued. "I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."

The young soldier glowered, jaw clenching impossibly tight, and then she looked away. "It'd be your funeral," she muttered, and Angela was mildly unsettled by the fact that the threat was not empty.

It would be easy to discharge her, to send her away for insubordination, but the argument about the self-destruct sequence was ringing in her ears and she could see the pained, tortured look in the younger woman's eyes when she had called her child and instead said, "Then I promise I won't."

Because that was easy. It easy to promise such a simple thing, because that was all D.Va had asked of her yet, and even then, it wasn't a question.

 

Making the decision to treat D.Va behind the scenes was easy on a forefront. Angela should have known this, known she wasn't thinking rationally, but she was running on little sleep, less energy, and approximately seven mugs of coffee when she had agreed to the idea, so it was her own fault that it had come to this— her, grimacing while watching Hana limp into the medical bay a few minutes before midnight, despite the fact that the mission had ended several hours earlier. It had been a solo mission.

D.Va took on the majority of those missions, and it was worrisome behavior, absolutely, but there was a certain type of fear and unsureness in Overwatch when it came to handling the young pilot, and they had no reason to deny her full access to the mission roster.

This particular mission had taken the newest recruit to Rostock, Germany, to investigate a supposed abandoned warehouse that had been a former Overwatch storage space. From the looks of it, it had not nearly been abandoned as the report said.

D.Va had changed into more casual clothes, black leggings and a tank-top. Angela could already tell that something had bled through the leg of the leggings, because the fabric glistened in the light, and there was a small cut on her bicep surrounded by a massive, bluish bruise, and her lip was split in two places.

"Evening, Ziegs," she chirped, but it lacked luster, eyes dim and suspicious. How one word had changed their relationship into something so strictly hostile, Angela was unsure, but she was familiar with signs of trauma and everything about this soldier screamed PTSD.

"Evening, D.Va," she responded nonetheless, already having prepared a nano shot and was now cleansing the needle. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Nothing bad. A gang of scavengers had set up shop inside. I cleared the area, easy, but they collapsed the roof on me. Scrub strat if you ask me."

That explained the arm and lip, but the leg still baffled her. She asked D.Va about it, who scowled. "Some kid caught my shin with his knife when I had my back turned. I was scanning the area. That's when I realized I wasn't alone, so I got in my mech, and the cockpit stalled the blood well enough."

(She should have known, by the way the girl was carrying herself, that there were more injuries, deeper, hidden beneath her clothes, but her mind was elsewhere, lost in the haze too many sleepless nights induced.)

Angela gestured towards the bed, and D.Va sat down obediently. "But then you had to get out. How long have you been hiding this? Two? Three hours?"

D.Va shrugged. "I've seen worse."

There it was again, that statement, the phrase that Angela was sure by now had nothing to do with the scars on her arms and legs and more with the scars Angela saw every time she looked into the soldier's eyes.

"Oh?" she asked lightly, attempting to put out a mild sort of curiosity, though her concern for the young woman ran far deeper. "Like what?"

D.Va's fists clenched as the doctor injected the nano shot, though she wasn't sure whether it was because of the pinch of the needle or because of what she had said. Angela backed away, not so fast as to make it obvious, but quick enough to let the young soldier's sudden anger sizzle and die out.

"That," D.Va spat, quiet and low, "is confidential."

Angela, intelligent as she was, decided not to press further. "If you would please sit down and roll up your legging to reveal the wound, that would be much appreciated."

The brunette sighed through her teeth and slumped down onto the medical bed, tugging up the slick fabric of her legging to reveal a long, deep cut wrapped haphazardly in gauze. It was easy to unwrap, and looking at it made her wince.

"Would you like me to stitch it?" she asked. She knew that she could stitch it right, and that it would heal cleanly for sure and certain, but D.Va had taken an unnerving liking to nano shots, which were riskier, but far faster. Angela had grown a habit of asking.

D.Va seemed to consider this for a moment, jaw clenched tightly as the doctor ran an alcohol-soaked cotton swab across the wound.

"Yeah," she said, at a length. "Why not."

There was a first time for everything, and if D.Va cursed while a sailor while Angela knit the spliced skin back together, the doctor said nothing. Even with the meds, it hurt like a bitch, the young girl muttered at some point. Angela chuckled and began rewrapping the wound in clean gauze.

D.Va did not thank her, when all was said and done, but she took the bottle of pain medication, which was more than she had ever done in the past.

(She should have known there were more injuries, from the way the young soldier had paused in the doorway, breathing deeply and pressing a hand against her side, and she did, and she should have _done something,_ but she didn't, because D.Va was new territory in every shape and form, and there were things beneath that saccharine skin that she didn't want to provoke.)

 

Missions came and went. Angela saw D.Va less and less, rare as they were deployed together, and instead spent her time on her research and watching old, foreign movies with Fareeha to pass the time.

Between stitching up bullet holes and short-notice mission calls, this time was far and few in between. She was the team physician, after all. She had to make sure they were all in the best state of health.

After a mission in Eichenwalde, Reinhardt's squad returned with a new addition to Overwatch's roster— a large, friendly robot that Lúcio had dubbed 'Bastion.' The team was quick to greet this surprise recruit, but Angela was not unaware of the way D.Va glowered at it when it could not see her, the way her hands twitched as if reaching for a gun when it entered the room.

She wondered why, but D.Va's story was hers to share. Despite how much it caused Angela stress, and how often it caused her to recalculate. D.Va was a destructive existence, and Angela wasn't sure what to do. Should she try to tame it by force, to squeeze the truth or of her, it would end in ruins. But what would happen if she let D.Va wallow in whatever pained her?

Sometimes, she pondered this aloud to Fareeha, and she couldn't blame the captain for never having a response.

 

Four days later, she, Zenyatta, Zarya, Soldier: 76, Mei, and D.Va were sent to a research facility in northern Finland to stop Talon activity there. Her job, as Mercy, was evacuation and quick treatment of any injured scientists on their way out. She and Soldier: 76 did not speak as they worked— she had to admit, she was angry with him, and she was not often angry, but this was different.

He had _broken_ Overwatch. How could she forgive him?

Zenyatta had gone to rendezvous with Zarya and Mei, while D.Va was busy keeping Reaper and Widowmaker occupied. The silence between her and Soldier: 76 was cold and unforgiving.

"Angela—" he said, finally.

"No," she said, firm. "Mercy. You have no right. Do your job."

And he did. And they did. There was some satisfaction in telling him what to do and him having to follow, because while Overwatch was not particularly keen on listening to D.Va's point of view, the young soldier brought up some good points to discuss.

Soldier: 76 was removed from the higher chain of command, replaced instead with Fareeha. Having Fareeha's input on the matters she swore herself from was relieving. She trusted Fareeha more than she trusted anyone else. The ten years since Overwatch's fall, long years where they had stayed in close contact, had done their relationship justice.

The facility was almost evacuated. Her comm crackled.

"We could use some back-up in the Eastern wing," Mei said, panting. "They called for reinforcements."

"Roger that. The facility's almost evacuated— we'll be there soon as we can," said Soldier: 76, and he turned to the door, visor bright in the dim light. "Kid, you there? You're close to their position. They could use a hand."

The comm fizzed, sputtered, and then a grunt was heard, as if D.Va was hefting herself to her feet.

"Copy that," she muttered. "Mercy, if you head down that hallway, you should be able to meet up with me. I have to go down a few flights. They could use another healer in the fight while 76 finishes up the evac."

Soldier: 76 huffed. "Just get down there, kid. An— _Mercy_ knows better than you do about where she needs to be."

D.Va's line went silent, but Angela felt the hostility in the silence all the same. She was torn— this was another one of D.Va's prodigious strategies, the ones she had sworn she would try to incorporate, but leaving would probably tarnish whatever her and 76 were trying to rescue from the ashes of Geneva.

"D.Va," she said, at last, when she realized that the decision really wasn't hard as she was making it. "I am en-route to your location."

Soldier: 76 spluttered behind her. D.Va started saying several things before cutting herself off, and the comm went deadly quiet.

"Are you sure?" Soldier: 76 asked, incredulous. Angela turned to him, her gaze cold and calculating.

"You said it yourself," she chided. "I know better than you do about where I need to be. Finish up the evacuation, and then you can join us in the hangar, if you're willing to fight anyone other than your own teammates."

Soldier: 76 snarled. "What would _you_ know about me that gives you the right to say that?"

Angela did not falter. Rather, she spun on her heel and paced out of the room. "I think the better question is," she said, lingering in the doorway of the research facility, "what it is, exactly, that I'm missing, and what it is you think you know about everyone else."

She walked quickly, her halo's scanner searching for her teammate's vitals and locking onto the large, pale green silhouette, lingering at the intersecting hallways. When she rounded the corner, D.Va gave her a wave with the arm of her mech, and Angela glided the rest of the way.

Behind her windshield, D.Va turned to her and grinned. "I didn't think you would come."

Some part of her knew that that statement was supposed to be a joke, but D.Va said it with such bitter honesty, with such caution in her gaze, as if she expected it to be a ruse, and Angela heard nothing but the truth.

 

When they returned to Watchpoint: Gibraltar for mission report, D.Va disappeared. Angela knew that she would be back, later, in the latest hours of the night or the earliest hors of the morning. Unless, of course, she had not taken any damage in the fight against both Reaper and Widowmaker, which was about as likely as Ana being alive.

And, as she had predicted, she was proven right. Seven minutes before midnight, in came the young soldier, dressed in track pants and a pink long-sleeve shirt with the sleeves pushed to the elbows.

"Here for your check-up?" Angela asked wearily, but managing a small smile for the young soldier.

D.Va's face was blank, eyebrows hanging low. She almost looked expectant.

"I failed," the younger woman stated, tone flat, hands shoved deep into her pockets.

Angela quirked a brow. "You distracted Reaper and Widowmaker long enough for us to complete the evacuation, and then helped clear the Talon operatives out of the rest of the facility." Angela turned her chair around. "I would hardly call that anything but a success."

D.Va's gaze narrowed impossibly further. Her arms came out of her pockets to fold across her chest. The gesture was almost defensive.

"Dr. Ziegler, I _failed._ "

Again, there was the expectant look. Angela frowned. She wasn't going to do anything, and had never done anything before, so why did the younger woman look so apprehensive?

"No," she said, steady because she had to be, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "You did your job. The mission was a success. Do you expect me to say anything else? You did well."

D.Va expression twisted, for a moment, into something akin to fear. Her hands twitched, her body seeming to curl in on itself— Angela had seen that kind of response before; in Genji, in Mei, and in Fareeha— before she cleared her throat and unraveled.

"Sure," D.Va said, no less wary, expression having reverted back to impassive, and stalked out of the medical bay.

Angela watched her go, bows knit, eyes pained. She wished there was more she could do, but D.Va had violently turned down any offer for help that she _absolutely_ did not require.

"What happened to you?" the doctor whispered, staring at the vacant gap the young soldier had left in her doorframe. "What did the world make you?"

Because that was the ultimatum of Overwatch— you joined, you fought, but you made the world a better place in the end. A safer place. The price was your personality, your body, and everything you loved. The world was better because of you, but you became so bent and twisted to the world's will that everything else became irrelevant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought playing Mercy in QP was bad try playing her in competitive
> 
> I usually try not to rant but MY LORD it's like playing dead by daylight or something because you show your face for .2 seconds and the enemy teams like: !!!!!!!!!!
> 
> smh see you in the next chapter. take your meds and get some sleep if you can
> 
> \- ace.


	3. they called her a martyr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Blizzard isn't going to give a backstory to the characters anyone actually gives a fuck about then I guess I have to.
> 
> This chapter is just backstory. That's it. That's the whole chapter. And bird moms. 
> 
> Again, I'm still trying to figure out how to write these two so any and all feedback/suggestions on how to properly portray their relationship in a way that is both healthy and equal are IMMENSELY appreciated!
> 
>  
> 
> I now present to you: Fareeha and Angela are bad at dealing with grief 2k17.

The death of Overwatch, Angela thought, started when Ana fell. Gérard's death and Amélie's mysterious vanishing had been hard, but nothing amounted to the sheer destruction Ana's death brought.

The sniper had been one of the three great commanders that formed the head of the black, orange, and blue snake, but she often didn't receive much recognition for her work. The awards and honors she earned were laid, instead, upon Strike Commander Morrison. As per usual.

It was a situation that many agents often joked about with a hint of bitterness to their tones. Angela couldn't blame them. Overwatch was not a one-man organization— it wasn't right for Jack to receive all the glory when there were many, many more who also deserved it.

But that business was none of hers.

When Ana fell, shot down by a sniper during a firefight in Egypt, it was the final nail in the coffin. Before then, Overwatch had been unstable, with Gabriel and Jack arguing about things progressively more and more senseless, and to lose the only person capable of holding them both back was a devastating blow. From then on, it was only a matter of time.

When Ana fell, Overwatch fell with her, and when Kimiko dashed into Angela's tent and spilled the news, it was already too late. By the time she was escorted to the scene, there was nothing but a smeared bloodstain and Ana's tattered blue beret.

 _You have nothing to save. You_ failed. _If you had been faster, you could have done something, so why weren't you faster? Why aren't you better? You are a failure and a Ziegler and Zieglers never fail—_

Her brain was traitorous and unruly in its rampant road of anguish, so she put it on lockdown until it could pull itself together, and moved on. There was never any use in dwelling on the past, she convinced herself. She would just have to work harder to be better, and to be more prepared. She had to move on.

(She had to. She had to. She— she wouldn't, would she? _Always too attached, Ziegler._ )

Her brain would not so easily be silenced.

 

Jack and Gabriel decided to hold the funeral in a small, tidy cemetery in England on a Sunday. Ana told Angela, once, one night where they were both drunk off their rockers, that she wanted to be buried near her home in Damietta, but Jack and Gabriel would not listen to her, would not listen to anything other than themselves, and Angela had to play along. Nothing good would come of becoming collateral of their sadness.

Not that it helped any, because Overwatch was broken, anyways.

Reinhardt was in shambles. Torbjörn had buried himself in his work not to think about it. Genji was skilled at avoiding contact with his teammates, and exercised that ability endlessly. Jesse was in a constant state of drunken stupor. Winston locked himself in his office, coming out for nothing and no one. Lena spent most of her time with Angela— the younger woman was in grief and her grief led often to harm, so Angela kept her close to make sure that nothing drastic would befall the young brunette.

And she, beneath every layer of calm she forced herself to don each morning, crumbled. Because her team wasn't strong enough to bear the weight so _she_ had to be. It was always her, wasn't it— it was always _her_ making the sacrifices. _Her_ pulling the all-nighters. _Her_ keeping the team together when all seemed lost. And from it stemmed a deep, melancholy anger, because she gave the world _so much_ and they gave her _ruins._

She was lost. Lost and in pain, an ache settling deep in the hollow of her chest, but she was strong for Overwatch— she had to be. No matter how bitter, no matter how tired she was, she would be strong because they were all she had.

Whatever she had to sacrifice to keep them together, she would. She had already lost so much— losing this, too, would kill her, surely.

So she gave them the world, gave them all she had to offer. She gave them _everything_ she could possible give and they called her a _martyr._

Yet, no matter what she did, there was a void deep in the heart Overwatch that she could not fill. She couldn't do _anything._ She was the healer, the support— she had created technology specifically designed to mend any wound. Being powerless, in such a dire situation, killed her.

She still needed to tell Fareeha, didn't she? Did the younger Egyptian know of her mother's death?

It hurt. Not immediately, but the hurt was deep and cold and merciless. Had she been there, she could have done something. She could have saved her. Were she not so afraid, were she more talented or faster or braver she could have _done something._ But she _hadn't_ and now she had to break the news to Fareeha, who was currently in training for the Egyptian army.

She needed to. It was her duty— not by obligation, not because of guilt, but because she _knew_ Fareeha and she worried for the woman's sake.

But she couldn't tell her. She wasn't that strong.

So, because of her, they had a close-casket funeral in London, and Angela felt sick, watching the long, hollow black box lower into rain-soaked soil, and couldn't help but wonder if Ana hated her for her weakness.

The days after were a blur. The UN was giving Overwatch a week's worth of leave, and every member spent their melancholy in their own ways. Angela, herself, followed the lead of Torbjörn and Winston and drowned herself in her work, Lena always at her side, running menial tasks for her to keep herself busy. It was a good distraction, for the first two days, but guilt was a corrosive emotion and it wasn't long before she succumbed to its rule.

Lena told her to go, said she was going to stay with Winston. Angela didn't have much choice, then. Part of her resisted, insisting instead on calling up her old friend, Mei-Ling Zhou, whom she had met in college, but lasts she had heard from the smaller woman was that she was going to study climatology in Antarctica and she wouldn't be back for quite some time, so that idea was out of the question.

Only one option remained.

 

Imagine this— one night, late in the summer, drunk on grief, Angela caught a plane and flew down to Damietta, where Fareeha had told her she was staying for a while on leave. She arrived late at night and somehow found her way to the door of the apartment, which opened before she could knock. Fareeha looked drained, gaze raw and red, deep bags beneath her eyes. She wore an HSI t-shirt that looked like it hadn't been washed in days and a pair of shorts. In her hand was a half-drained bottle of whiskey.

"I saw," was the first thing Fareeha said, voice hoarse, somewhat slurred, wavering where she stood in the doorway. "It— it played on the television at the bar. I know. She's— dead." Her voice cracked on the last word, as if she almost couldn't bring herself to believe it. The truth always was harsh.

"I'm sorry," Angela rasped, eyes burning, throat constricting. The dry breeze is cold and rustles her hair. "I failed her. I failed _you._ I couldn't get there in time. I-I... I couldn't— I _tried—_ " with a strangled cry, Angela clasped a hand over her mouth and bit down hard to muffle the sobs.

Fareeha's expression crumpled, and she quickly stepped forward, arms wrapping tightly around Angela's soldiers. When had the Egyptian gotten so tall? How many years had passed since they had last seen each other face to face?

"I never got to say goodbye," Fareeha croaked, and Angela could feel wet droplets on her shoulder. "We had an argument, before I left. We haven't talked since. I never apologized for what I said."

"I-I couldn't save her," she whispered, fisting her hands in the fabric of Fareeha's shirt. "I wasn't fast enough. It's my fault—"

" _Angela,_ " the Egyptian hissed. "Don't you dare blame yourself for this. You did what you could. You do _so much._ There was nothing you could have done."

Every inch of Angela wanted to argue. Every inch of her _was_ arguing, internally, and the words jumped to her tongue but she bit them down. She couldn't muster words over the lump lodged in her throat, and the nod she gave into Fareeha's shoulder was hardly convincing.

Fareeha guided them inside, closing the door and locking it. The apartment was warm, almost cozy, the walls a sandy brown shade and the floors hardwood. On the kitchen counter rested empty shot glasses. Fareeha guided her to one of the two stools at the counter, pulling back only when Angela was safely seated, and used her thumbs to wipe the tears away from the blonde's face.

"Let me get you a drink," Fareeha said, quiet, but soft. It was as much an invitation as it was a request. The Egyptian wouldn't force her if she didn't want to, but it was clear that she did not want to be alone.

"Please," Angela replied. It wasn't often that she drank, but the stress was colossal in its weight and she needed, for one night, to let go.

 

The bourbon was strong. Angela lost count of how many glasses she drank. She would be regretting this in the morning, surely, but it was nice to not have to think, to just talk with Fareeha about things she couldn't quite comprehend, nonsense replacing logic and slurred giggles replacing words.

She woke up the next morning in Fareeha's bed to the smell of coffee, her pants strangely absent but her shirt still on her shoulders. It was a minor relief, to know that she hadn't done anything wildly out of control— anything she would have regretted. The hangover was strong, the sun almost painfully bright in the window. She found her trousers a moment later, discarded on the floor in a rumpled heap, and slipped them on.

Fareeha was waiting for her in the kitchen, breakfast sizzling on the stove and coffee dripping from the small, modern machine. It was awfully domestic— almost enough to make her forget that Ana was dead and Overwatch was falling apart at the seams and that last night was the first she'd slept in what felt like an eternity.

For five days, it was just the two of them and Damietta; long, quiet hours filled with small, innocent touches and hushed banter in the moonlight, with a movie on the TV in front of them.

It was easy, with Fareeha. Angela couldn't quite forget, couldn't bring herself to move on, but the weight was lighter with the soldier at her side.

It was easy, almost comforting to have a warm hand in her own in the dead of the night when her failure ("Not your fault," Fareeha said, adamantly, every abrupt awakening without fail) haunted her. It was easy, giving Fareeha a shoulder to cry on when it hit the younger woman again that she was the last living member of her family.

Angela knew that feeling. All her life she had been alone.

They were broken, broken by a dying family and a death heavy as stone. But, in each other, in someone equally broken and equally lost, they found strength. The strength to get up in the morning and close their eyes at night, knowing how terrible the dreams would be. They found the strength to put one foot in front of the other, and Angela gave Fareeha everything she had left and Fareeha took what she needed and gave back what she had.

It was easy to live— not survive, but _live_ — but they both knew it would not last forever.

 

The days of leave after Ana's death came to an end. Angela was called back to Overwatch, this time being assigned to a facility in Geneva, Switzerland. Fareeha was being promoted to captain of an elite squadron of experimental soldiers called 'Raptora.' Their farewell was bittersweet. If they kissed, Angela wouldn't say anything.

 

* * *

 

Geneva was a bomb waiting to explode, figuratively and literally. Angela was lucky to make it out alive. The explosion had damaged the plating of her cybernetic spine, had burned the fringes of her Valkyrie suit. She had only just returned from a mission with Reinhardt, Jesse, and Genji when the explosion had gone off. She was lucky.

Gabriel, Jack, and Liao didn't make it. Doomfist was missing. Kimiko and Mirembe had retired after Ana was declared KIA. The other agents were either dispersed, injured, or dead.

Winston and Lena lucky to still be in Gibraltar. Torbjörn was lucky to have been assigned to Watchpoint: Bangladesh the year before. Angela was just lucky to be alive, and though her skin was burned and sweat was rolling down her face, she was a beacon of life for the ashes of the organization she used to know and love. Her caduceus was her pillar, and she swept across the flames with all the grace of an eagle.

Internally, she held a small, isolated funeral for Overwatch, because this was what Gabriel and Jack had done, and she loved them like brothers and fathers and comrades but this destruction was on their heads, and even in death, she doubted she would ever be able to bring herself to forgive them.

Their funerals were held in America, in the Arlington National Cemetery, the white pillars of stone over their names just as identical to the next, two more soldiers to add to the collection of names the heroic resting place bore. It should have been an honor, to attend a funeral there, but all Angela felt was sick, because their caskets were just as empty as Ana's had been, and she had failed her family three times now.

Fareeha called, in the aftermath of her eulogy, to make sure she was stable. Angela wasn't fine, her vision swimming and she almost wanted to delete her existence from the face of the earth, but to Fareeha, she said, "You'll need to buy more whiskey," to which the Egyptian had laughed in a sad, understanding sort of way before she hung up.

Jack and Gabriel's deaths were hard on her, almost painful in a way that scars or flesh wounds could never be. The guilt was worse than it had previously been, keeping her just on the edge of everything she could remember from her psychology books, and her research was the salvation she had.

The agents who had also died in the Geneva explosion were buried elsewhere, wherever their families so desired. Angela found herself too tired to attend them all, and instead flew for Damietta, where she was welcomed into a small, sandy brown apartment with hardwood floors that smelled like coffee and _home_ with open arms.

"I hope Auld Stag is all right. It was the only whiskey the liquor store had in stock," Fareeha said, pulling the bottle from her cupboard.

Angela smiled, and it was strained. "Fareeha, I will honestly drink anything you give me as long I don't have to think."

Fareeha's gaze softened, even as she poured the two of them shots.

 

After Geneva, it was only a matter of time before Overwatch was put down. The members who remained parted ways reluctantly, but obediently. Hiding was their only sanctuary, now.

Lena was heading to London to live with her girlfriend. Reinhardt was going to head back to Germany in search of his young apprentice, Brigitte. Torbjörn said he was going to make his way back to his wife in Sweden, but gave no details on what he was going to do along the way.

Genji had gone to train with a master in Nepal. One morning, he was there in the Watchpoint, the next he was gone, no belongings or any evidence he was ever a member of Overwatch. All they had of his whereabouts was a small, succinct letter written in broken English.

Jesse said he was going to go undercover for a while, maybe settle some old scores while he was at it. He had the decency to bid them all farewell in person, unlike Genji, and then disappeared off the radar, just like that. Angela didn't know how he did it, how they could all bring themselves to leave and run and hide. How they could just— _disappear._ She certainly wasn't angry, but she couldn't say she didn't hate them for it.

Winston had been given reign of the now abandoned Watchpoint: Gibraltar, seeing as he was from the moon and had nowhere else to go. So long as he did nothing with the old equipment that remained, that was his home. Angela saw it as she left and it looked... empty. Winston said he would be fine with just him and Athena there, that he wouldn't get lonely, but it was a blatant lie. She didn't question it.

And Angela? Angela offered her services to the Egyptian army. They accepted her request within the hour.

When she requested rooming with Fareeha Amari, they didn't argue, too thrilled to have her help with the upcoming attacks. The commanding officers found the two of them a room in the barracks, something of moderate size situated close to the medical wing, and left them to their own. They wouldn't question why they requested shared quarters— the world knew of Ana's death. The world knew the Amari legacy.

But they did not know the heaviness of such a burden. Angela was sick with the loss of a second family. Fareeha was crushed beneath the weight of expectation, as the next Amari to sacrifice their life for the army. It was her legacy, her predetermined duty to follow the tradition, and her mother's shadow was endless and dark and somehow inescapable.

Some days, _most_ days, they were the only things keeping each other afloat. Alive. Some days, they turned on a movie late at night, typically comedies in languages Angela understood only minimally, curling into each other on their shared bed and relaxing beneath the sheets.

Some days, when Angela was finished tending to whatever dumb recruits that had busted themselves during training and when Fareeha had returned from the test zone, they were too tired to do much other than fall into bed and sleep hard.

There were days where the world was simply too much for Angela to bear alone, so she closed herself in her office and let the other doctors handle patients while she reveled in silence for a few hours, evening her breathing and steadying her heartbeat and calming the roaring monster that roamed freely in her head.

There were days where Fareeha couldn't convince herself to leave the bedroom and face the younger recruits' hopeful gazes, lighting up as they recognized the tattoo on her face and said, "Captain Amari? Daughter of Ana Amari? Well, I'm sure you'll be as great a captain as your mother was, someday!" as if she wasn't already losing herself in her mother's shadow.

There were days of fire and passion and whiskey, and there were days of weakness and hugs tight like vices and the smell of rain. There were days of morning sunlight and long walks after work, and there were days of mending bruises after long hours of training.

It was easy, with Fareeha, to live and not survive. Years passed in this manner, until Angela was reassigned to a base elsewhere and they said goodbye. They promised to stay in close contact best they could— Fareeha had almost completed her training with Raptora and soon would be sent out to fight against the rampant God Program, Anubis.

The years after were spent in medical tents with sand in her ears, tending to bullet wounds and war victims, all the while furthering her research. Angela left Overwatch behind her, believing wholeheartedly that it was time to move on, to move past her guilt and focus instead on making the world a better place with Helix Security International.

And she did. She poured all her attention into her work, and FaceTimed with Fareeha on the weekends. She fixed up her Valkyrie suit and joined Raptora in the fight against Omnic terrorism in Egypt. Her life was slowly coming back together again

 

Then, one day, after ten long years, the old comm in the halo of her Valkyrie suit began to beep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Timelines are an illusion and so are the Pharmercy voice lines." - Michael Chu
> 
> Yes I'm still bitter about that. Aren't we all?
> 
>  
> 
> Anyways, after this chapter we're back on to the """"real"""" story which is actually just Ace Vents about the Struggles of a Mercy Main in Proressively Darker and More Detailed Ways.
> 
> Also do you guys still want me to put the TW/CW at the beginning of the chapters? i feel like yall wouldn't read this if you didn't know what you were getting yourselves into but idk
> 
> Have a good week my dudes. Depression's been kicking my ass but my birthday's on Saturday so that should be somewhat less exhausting.
> 
> If you weren't aware I have a tumblr and its @cerealwatch so if you have any questions that's the place to ask.
> 
> \- Ace.


	4. enemy of my enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote half of this when i was sick so if it isn't legible it ain't my fault. i'll probably go back and fix it when i get better but until then try to make some sense of it.
> 
> this chapter's dedication goes to bleach (go to sleep, bleach) and reverend (a true poet). y'all have a good night.
> 
> enjoy.

One moment in particular struck Angela often. It was, in her opinion, the moment in time that had most defined the D.Va as an individual, that had made the young soldier's morals clear as day, that had severed whatever bonds they had thought they had made with the idol, and her plastic, feral smile.

It had been after a successful raid on a Talon encampment near the equilibrium that was the city of Numbani. The enemy had been wiped, unsuspecting of Overwatch's swift and succinct ambush. The strike team had been composed of Pharah, D.Va, Tracer, Zarya, Winston, and herself.

Angela could recall a snippet of conversation from when they regrouped.

"D.Va, well done out there! You must have wiped out half the enemy team with that big bomb of yours!" Lena chirped, knocking on the side of the pilot's newly formed mech, all in the spirit of congratulation.

D.Va spared the brunette a glance, a smile spreading across her face, but her hands gripping her joysticks so tightly her knuckles must have turned white beneath her suit.

"I know— that's why I installed it. MVP: D.Va." the idol bragged, even as she turned away, and Angela could no longer see her expression.

She and Fareeha shared a glance, unnerved, uncertain. There was some sort of edge to the pilot's tone that was somewhat unsettling.

"What do you mean by that?" Fareeha queried, her tone carefully neutral.

"No one can survive a minimized nuke. They're not supposed to," D.Va said, indifferent in a way that was almost carefree, and Angela's heart ached.

The doctor looked at D.Va, and she didn't know what she saw. Sometimes, she saw a second Gabriel Reyes, the making of a soldier who would do anything to defend their morals. Sometimes, she saw a puzzle, all the pieces glued together, but only barely— a balancing act. Sometimes, she saw an idol with a wild smile, a sharp tongue, and a bottomless hunger for blood.

But now, she looked at D.Va, and she saw a gladiator. She saw a warrior, twisted and trained until all they knew was combat, and they did it so well that it was almost entertainment.

And, in a way, it was, because D.Va streamed her missions, after all. It make Angela wonder what kind of sick, twisted world it was if a nineteen year-old bloodying her hands more and more every day in the name of honor was considered 'entertaining.'

Then again, wasn't that the world she had been raised in? Angela Ziegler, who skipped two grades in elementary school because her brain was too advanced for them, because by the time she was a senior she had devised a revolutionary creation in the medical field that would go on to both expand and ruin her in every way, shape, and form.

This was the world they lived in— this was what Overwatch bled for. Ragtag, strewn together by only a vague semblance of unity, traces of a unanimous goal that was less world protection at this point and more family, and here were the repetitions, the fragments of history that always would and always did repeat.

Here was D.Va— part gladiator, part soldier, part idol, part gamer, and part something that Angela had yet to figure out.

"Either way," the doctor said, attracting the attention of both Lena and the consistently more complex person of her thoughts. "It really did save our skin out there. I'm glad you added it." She wasn't appreciative of the risks, or of the damage, or of the fact it had been done without permission, but she was glad for it. She figured, at the very least, D.Va's evident sense of pride would warm up to the praise.

However, the pilot of the sparkly new MEKA suit— out of place in its cleanness amongst the destruction— only snorted. Angela couldn't tell if it was a smug or sardonic sound.

"I'm just doing my job, Ziegs," D.Va said.

(What the young soldier didn't say, but surely meant, was— " _It always ends up like this— it's always about the kill count, never the costs, with you people. But I'll keep doing it because it's the only thing I know how to do._ ")

  
After they had made sure that the camp was completely and utterly shut down, the strike team returned to Gibraltar, where the other agents met them with alcohol and warm food for their success.

D.Va, immediately, peeled away from the welcome party, probably intending to head to her room and lock herself there until she was sure no one would bother her. Angela understood the sentiment, but wished the young soldier would at least make an effort to open up. It had been months of minimalistic communication and closed doors at every turn with the pilot, no matter what efforts she made to accommodate. Regardless, she would respect D.Va's mysterious need for isolation.

However, others did not share the same sentiment.

Before D.Va could escape, Lena blinked into the younger woman's way, preventing her from leaving.

"Come on, luv," the Brit begged, her smile bright, but her eyes pleading. "We're a team. We're _friends_. Come celebrate with us."

D.Va regarded her coolly for a long moment. The room noticed the tension in the air and quieted. Finally, the youngest member spoke, her voice light, almost cheery, like it usually was, but it held a warning— there was anger there.

"We fight together. We are a team. However, we are not allies, or companions, or _friends_ ," she sneered, moving past the Brit. "You are the enemy of my enemy. That does _not_ , in any way, give you the right to call me your _friend_."

Lena's expression fell as the young soldier left the room, and for a few minutes, no one spoke. Angela met Fareeha's gaze across the room. The word her partner mouthed to her would come to stick with her for longer that she anticipated, right then and there—

 _Lost_.

Angela frowned, tilting her head in confusion, and with a sigh the new strike commander made her way over to the doctor.

"Do we have any records on her?" Fareeha queried softly as the room slowly returned back to its previous level of chaos. "Military, personal, or otherwise?"

Angela shook her head. "Those are confidential. I have access to her military and medical records, but nothing more. That has to be information she gives up willingly."

Fareeha ground her teeth together, brows furrowed. That was what made her a good commander— she cared about her team. Angela held her in high regards for that.

"I would like to see her military record. I'm still trying to figure her out. You've noticed, haven't you? The certain..." Fareeha paused, searching for the word. "Volatility about her."

Angela nodded. "I have, _schatz_. It concerns me greatly, but I cannot do anything to withhold her because it is not affecting her field performance whatsoever. If it were more inhibiting, I could file a medical constraint, but from a physical standpoint, there's nothing wrong.

"It is always difficult to convince a government to take their agent back when you have no proof. They won't believe me if I tell them it's mental if they can't see it in her, too. And they would not have offered her services to us if they believed she was unwell. If D.Va is here, it is because she passed both her mental and her physical with the South Korean government. That, or the supervisor of MEKA is breaking every single protocol in the book by having her here."

Fareeha pondered this for a moment. "Let's see what we can do. I just— I hate seeing her like this. I hate it because I see myself in her. She has potential. She has _skill_. I don't know what's wrong, or if there's anything I can do to help, but..."

Angela shook her head. "Fareeha, I know how badly you want to help her— that's one of the things I love most about you, your passion to help those in need— but this is not something we can force. We cannot do anything if we do not even know what is wrong."

Fareeha's fists clenched and unclenched, jaw clenched tight. "But we cannot sit here and do nothing. I will not, not while she hurts so obviously."

"I know, Fareeha. And we will, but now is not the time. She is not open to our help— not now, not yet. Until then, we can only observe and try to figure out the safest course of action until she decides to let us help."

Fareeha closed her eyes, breathing deeply for a moment to calm herself. "Very well." And then, her expression crumpled somewhat. "There's really nothing I can do, is there."

Angela winced, but nodded, glancing around them, where the other members partied and drank and roared with laughter. Only Lena still looked unsettled, glancing at the door D.Va had exited through every now and then, her expression half guilty, half sad.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't know what we can do other than wait and see what happens. I don't know D.Va. There's something so obviously wrong, but everything _seems_ fine, and everything _is_ fine when I have confronted her about it before. So, either we're reading her wrong about this, or she is impeccable at hiding what is wrong."

Angela followed Lena's gaze to the door, and she hated not being able to do anything to help, but she knew what she needed to do to maybe get there, someday.

The wait would be long, and it would be hard, but it was the only choice they had.

  
Of course, other than that one, there were other snippets of D.Va that stuck with her as time carried on, conversations the others gossiped about at the dinner table, or complains she received as she tended to her patients. She often lent an ear to the concerns of Aleksandra and Lena regarding their youngest member.

From Aleksandra, she heard tales of late night training, far past curfew, and how sometimes the pilot would stay in there way past when Aleksandra quit for the night, how there were times were D.Va would step away from the punching bag, her knuckles bloody and bruised, wrap them in another layer of gauze, and launch right back into the fight.

(To say the least of her thoughts, it was worrisome, but then again, Lena had been like that her first few days in Overwatch, too.

However, she could not normalize the action. After all, it had been several months, and if this had been going on that whole time...)

From Lena, she received mission details about the young pilot. Lena and D.Va were often deployed together, courtesy of Fareeha, who had more or less hired the young brunette to keep an eye on the young soldier. The two of them shared a similar, unrelenting concern for their youngest teammate, and Angela found it almost endearing, but never failed to remind them to tread carefully— D.Va had never been open to help in the past, and trying to press her into it would not do any of them any good.

And, indeed, the two of them were careful. Lena, no matter how sharp D.Va was with her, no matter how unresponsive she was to her efforts, kept up a friendly, open demeanor with the girl. Sometimes, her perseverance paid off, and D.Va would relax, if slightly, if almost unnoticeably. But these moments were always short-lived and D.Va was starting to notice. Intelligent as she was, the young soldier had actively started to stamp down on these brief milliseconds of looseness.

Lena relayed this to Angela when she could, her efforts to help with the ultimate cause of figuring out the masterwork that was D.Va were crucial, though small.

She heard from debrief all of D.Va's accomplishments on the field, how many she'd kill and how many she'd saved. From Lena, however, she was told the tenseness of D.Va's expression during said debrief, how whenever they mentioned the kill count Lena could see the numbers turning in the pilot's eyes, and her gaze would go blank, expression unreadable.

From Lena and Aleksandra, she was revealed the side of D.Va that was all thorns and shrapnel, a walking cataclysm wherever she went, acidic and turbulent and Angela couldn't help but feel like this was somewhat her fault.

(Often, she remembered the look D.Va had given her when 'child' had accidentally slipped from the doctor's lips— the betrayal and hurt and ragged outrage, but now that she thought about it, there had been acceptance in that gaze, as well as exhaustion, as if the young pilot had anticipated this would happen all along.)

  
On the flip side, she also heard of all the good things D.Va had done, heard of the idol and superstar side of the young woman from Reinhardt, Lúcio, and Jack.

From Reinhardt, she was in for long descriptions of the idol's latest stream, where she played _blank_ game and said _blank_ thing. She learned more about Starcraft II from him than she ever learned researching the game in her own time. She heard from Reinhardt tales of the candyfloss and pink lace side of D.Va, the one who was known for her quirky persona and trademark face, the D.Va who was good with crowds and rich and spontaneous in a way the world loved. Reinhardt was merely another victim to the ruse.

From Lúcio, the young man recounted memories of D.Va's glory days, where they had together collaborated on public events. He had stood next to her on stage as she smiled and grinned and laughed for the cameras, and he said it was one of the most fun things he had ever done, with 'fun' being attending social events with the MEKA legend. It was easy for Angela to recognize— Lúcio had seen her but he hadn't _seen_ her. D.Va had shown him, and probably the rest of the crowd, too, what she wanted them to see.

D.Va was good at that, being what she wanted to be. It made life difficult for Angela, who was still trying to figure out what was the truth, but she had long-since accepted that this would not be an easy task.

From Jack, she heard every complaint he had to share about the young, uncontainable recruit. She heard his laments about her recklessness in combat, heard him drawl about her unexplained need for absolute completion of every mission— if it wasn't completed to her standard, then she would make it so, no matter what it took. She heard him grumble about her so-called 'childish' view on life, how she didn't take battle seriously.

That last statement had intrigued her, and she had asked for clarification. Jack had willingly recounted the conversation for her, how he'd interrupted one of her streams during a long, taxing mission in Russia.

" _War isn't a game_ ," he'd snapped to her as she shut off her webcam postbellum, a statement to which she leveled her gaze on him, disinterested.

" _Are you sure life isn't a game, Soldier: 76_?" D.Va had replied, and Angela wasn't surprised that alarm bells hadn't gone off in Jack's head when he heard the statement like they did in hers.

Because that was bad. If her degree in psychology had taught her anything, that was very, very bad.

  
Fareeha was her alternative source, the commander only slightly on better terms with D.Va, and was able to more easily eke out small tidbits of information from the young soldier. It was never much, and it was never pressing, and they almost seemed to be on good terms before it cut off one day. Fareeha told the story as they lay in bed together, dozing lightly that evening.

D.Va had just gotten back from a reportedly hairy mission in New Orleans. A strike led by Aleksandra, accompanied by D.Va and Mei. No on had gotten out unharmed, D.Va sporting a dislocated shoulder and two broken fingers herself.

However, not fifteen minutes after her return, the young soldier had approached Fareeha and asked her to spar. It wasn't something she had ever done before, Fareeha explained, something akin to remorse in her tone.

Fareeha had wanted to accept, but the bent fingers on D.Va's hand and the way she was cradling one of her arms had forced her to say no. She had tried to explain to the younger woman that she should probably see Angela about her fingers, but D.Va's eyes had glazed over in a way that indicated she wasn't listening, a deep-set expression of disappointment falling over her face.

"I know I made the right choice," Fareeha said with a sigh, breathing deeply into the crook of Angela's neck. "I don't regret what I did, but I'm afraid I may have to start over my relations with her, now."

Angela, to her credit, did not know what to say, didn't know what she _could_ say in response to that, so she just held her tongue and let Fareeha's strong, steady heartbeat lull her to sleep.

  
All of a sudden, D.Va was the only thing anyone seemed to talk about. Gossip was spread between teammates, concerns shared amongst the hierarchy of Overwatch.

And with all of this information together, Angela began to create a skeleton.

 

* * *

 

Angela was alarmed to hear of their new recruit on such short notice. A former Vishkar agent supplied heavily with information and burdened with a hefty bounty for her return. The doctor was less than pleased to learn that she would not meet the recruit until her fire team met up with Jack's somewhere in the infamous Deadlock Gorge. Which, if the information given was correct, would be in two weeks or so. Schedules were often prone to change— the world was unforgiving in its tendency towards violence.

The blonde wished she had been informed ahead of time so that she could have better prepared for the routine exams, and so that she could at least _try_ to get to know the recruit, but alas, there were fumbles in procedure. She was not yet accustomed to Winston's leadership. 

Winston’s was more spontaneous, not like Jack's— all by the books professionalism; not like Gabriel's— cold on a front but warm deeper down, a passionate drive to make the world a better place, no matter what; not like Ana's— quiet observance, interjecting only when needed, a constant preparedness among her troops.

She was not used to Winston— awkward stumbling through the dark, trying to figure out what he was comfortable saying and ordering, a jumbled mess of inexperience and a noticeable lack of discipline; not used to Reinhardt— a man so used to following orders that he often forgot to give them, who cared endlessly for his team, but had not enough willpower to tell them what to do. 

However, Angela was used to Fareeha— of her stern, hyperfocused exterior, beneath which lied a leader whose heart she gave freely, who would listen to any input, who had the capacity and the skill to bring Overwatch back from the dust.

Angela knew Fareeha's leadership. She had served alongside her partner in HSI for many years before the recall, after all. She had fought alongside Raptora. Their partnership, Fareeha’s nature, and by extent, her interior, was nothing new, but it was different now with Overwatch, a place so torn by leadership in the past that finding it again was thorns and briars.

Winston's unprecedented recruitments were terribly inconvenient, but they were becoming usual, and Angela felt another knot loosen from her shoulders when she realized that Overwatch was, slowly, stitching itself back together. Perhaps not instantly, not with fresh wounds and recruits to adjust and make due for. Perhaps not instantly, with old scars and brittle tongues, lashing out like fire at the slightest inkling of provocation.

No, it would not be instant, but Angela would persist. She would do her job as the physician on base, and she would take exams and heal and keep her family together. It was what she did best, after all.

 

Two weeks passed quickly. Before she knew it, she was packing up her Valkyrie suit and moving with Jesse, Reinhardt, and Lena to an old warehouse in the Deadlock Gorge— an old gang base, Jesse explained. It would serve well as a reconnaissance point. They were going to make sure activity within the area had well been abandoned.

It was there that Angela met Satya. The architech did not shake her hand, but was polite overall, and willingly agreed to a brief physical exam before the two of them, along with Lena and Reinhardt, went out on patrol. The doctor tried to make conversation with the new recruit, and it was mostly one-sided, but Angela could tell Satya was trying to fit in to the best of her ability.

"How have your first two weeks here been?" the blonde asked conversationally, keeping her tone light and open as they picked through the fallen remains of an abandoned diner.

Satya, callsign Symmetra, was silent for a long moment before responding.

"Overwatch is... different than what I imagined.”

Angela couldn't help but let out a weak chuckle. "Yes. It is different, in more ways than one. Despite that, I do hope you are settling in well.”

The architech shifted uncomfortably where she stood, prosthetic fingers dancing over several bullet holes scoured into the wall.

"I suppose you could say that.”

Angela knew she had overstepped her bounds, and did not pry. If the other woman didn't want to share, then it was none of her business. “I see. This sector seems to be clear. Let’s meet up with Reinhardt and Tracer to see what they found at the gas station.”

The two other teammates in question gave their reports— nothing, no movement, hardly a whisper. Whatever had happened to the gorge, it had done its job well in making sure it was and would stay abandoned.

They returned to their makeshift camp in the empty warehouse, and were greeted by Jesse and Jack and the smell of something burning. Whatever Jesse had been cooking was unsalvageable, but Hanzo was already on the case, picking through their limited supplies to see what he could find.

D.Va joined them just as Angela was starting to unlatch the armor of her Valkyrie suit. The doctor turned to greet her, but her eyes zeroed in on the bloody knuckles of the young soldier’s hand before she could muster the words.

Skin split and raw, riddled with large slivers of wood, the injured appendage cradled loosely by the palm of the undamaged hand, of which was covered in blood itself from being cupped under the wound.

Angela took two swift steps forward, still only half done with taking off the Valkyrie suit, and reached out for the abrasion. “Why are your hands bleeding?” she asked, voice hard, gaze stern in their concentrated glare downwards. D.Va gaze her an unimpressed once-over, glanced at something just over her shoulder, and gave a noncommittal shrug.

Angela tried to be amiable, and flexible, and gentle with her teammates. But this was taking her generosity too far. She loved Overwatch like family, but she was, first and foremost, a field medic.

“Let me see.”

D.Va reluctantly held out her loosely clenched fist, blood dripping onto the floor as soon as her other hand was moved from beneath it. The two of them were lucky the others hadn’t come over to see what all the fuss was about.

Angela looked it over gently, as to not aggravate it further. She figured D.Va wouldn’t tell her the mysterious cause of such a wound, but she could make several guesses right off the bat, all of which were entirely possible.

She let out a sigh, and didn’t miss the way D.Va smothered a flinch at the sound, her hand jerking backwards imperceptibly, her face contorting into a wince for a heartbeat before it returned to its typical, careful neutrality.

“Well?” D.Va sneered, tugging her hand back to her chest. “What’s the prognosis, Doc? I’m not gonna die, so I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

Angela’s brows drew together, her eyes scanning the younger woman’s face. D.Va… almost appeared defensive. It was almost fear, _almost_ , but not quite, but there was also indifference there. Was she the only one who saw a problem here, between the two of them? Surely the pilot was aware _something_ was terribly wrong about this situation, right?

The doctor let out a breath between her teeth. Now was not the time.

“Let’s get you patched up,” she said instead, and she went to retrieve her Caduceus staff from the rack several meters behind her.

 

D.Va was a mystery, an anomaly in every way Angela could think of. Earnestly, she had no idea what to do with the younger woman. Obviously, there was something horribly awry. but it was against her morals to press for the information— there needed to be consent, there, in the sharing of such personal torment. But she wanted— needed— to know what was wrong, so that she could figure out something to do, something to _help_ , for God’s sake.

These thoughts gnawed at her, even as they were transported back to Watchpoint: Gibraltar and, from there, to a small, well-hidden watchpoint along the black Icelandic beaches of Vík í Mýrdal. They ate at her for the entire first day of their temporary stay keeping her awake well past the time Fareeha nodded off, and eventually chasing her out from under the warm sheets.

 _No rest for the wicked_ , she mused, supposing that, instead of sleeping, she may as well shower to clear her thoughts. She grabbed a change of clothes from her unpacked suitcase and made her way through the dimly lit hallways to the shower room, surprised and alarmed to find that the lights were on when she got there.

Nevertheless, she opened the door, but not without some degree of caution. Indeed, someone was inside, a relatively small figurine slumped down on one of the benches that lined the far wall of the room.

Angela’s clothing roll fell to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyyy cliffhanger yo that isn't actually a cliffhanger bc y'all know the shitshow that is next chapter.
> 
> i know this is still pretty d.va focused but i swear this will be more pharmacy focused after chapter 6, if that's what y'all are here for. i swear, we'll get there. pharmercy IS the main focus of this i just need the build up. sorry.
> 
> i don't have much to say at the end of this here chapter so i guess i'll just see you in the next one.
> 
> \- ace.


	5. the light below

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey it's a late update but it's an update at least! It's been a long few weeks for me with finals and all.
> 
> Huge thank you to Bee, my new and amazing beta, for catching all my grammatical and story errors. uwu
> 
> Enjoy.

Angela didn't know when it began, but she should have realized sooner.

She should have known here—

_"Name?" she asked, gesturing to the medical bed so that the young soldier could have a seat._

_"D.Va!" her patient chirped in response. Could anyone's voice be so naturally high pitched?_

_Angela faltered, glancing upwards over the top of her reading glasses, brows drawing close in befuddlement. "I need your real name. For the records," she said, careful. Her patients usually were better equipped with knowledge as to how these things proceeded._

_The young woman's eyes glinted with something wild and dangerous that Angela immediately did not want to awaken._

_"Just D.Va will be fine," the young soldier replied coolly, the grin unwavering. "And I'm nineteen years old. My general appearance is well developed, well nourished, alert, and cooperative. I am not in any obvious distress. Throw them at me, doc. I'm here for a physical, not an interrogation. This isn't personal."_

Of course it was personal— it was her body, her skin and her flesh and her bone. Of course it was personal, but not in a _personal_ way. An exam only dealt with the physical, but had nothing to do with the mental. If Hana had disconnected throughout the exam, she should have known. Hell, if the young soldier had been somewhat disconnected all along, she should have known. It was her job, the reason Overwatch had taken her in, and she had failed.

Failure was not an option here. Not where there were no second chances.

She should have known here—

_Angela pushed D.Va down onto the table, and picked through her medical tray for a scalpel. "Medical confidentiality," the doctor promised, and D.Va's gaze was still suspicious, so she continued. "I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."_

_The young soldier glowered, jaw clenching impossibly tight, and then she looked away. "It'd be your funeral," she muttered, and Angela was mildly unsettled by the fact that the threat was not empty._

And, perhaps, she did know, but her fear of the past had prevented her from saying anything. Because when had saying anything ever done her any good? Last time she spoke out, her mentor had been buried in London rather than Damietta and some part of Fareeha had broken. Last time she spoke out, Gabriel had died and Jack had disappeared and Overwatch had fallen to pieces.

But when had doing nothing done her any good, either? You didn't get results by sitting and watching bacteria grow in the petri dish. She should have done something— said something— but it was too late, now, to go back and fix it.

She should have known here, too—

_"Either way," the doctor said, attracting the attention of both Lena and the consistently more complex person of her thoughts. "It really did save our skin out there. I'm glad you added it." She wasn't appreciative of the risks, or of the damage, or of the fact it had been done without permission, but she was glad for it. She figured, at the very least, D.Va's evident sense of pride would warm up to the praise._

_However, the pilot of the sparkly new MEKA suit— out of place in its cleanness amongst the destruction— only snorted. Angela couldn't tell if it was a smug or sardonic sound._

_"I'm just doing my job, Ziegs," D.Va said._

In Overwatch, it was no one's job to kill for the sake of killing, to kill in the name of national pride or more views. It was their job to protect, and death was just a side effect. She should have realized that D.Va's job wasn't to protect; she should have thought of the files she found revealing the young soldier's forceful recruitment. D.Va was only here to entertain, and if entertainment was the immolation of morality, so be it. If to kill was to please and to burn the world to ash was international gold, then so be it.

The oceans could fill with blood and dead children could scream and D.Va would sit back and watch it all.

Because D.Va was a soldier, and from it, she learned war; she was an idol, and from it, she learned pleasure; she was a commander, and from it, she learned sacrifice. And then she fused them all together, strewn together in an intangible stream, the art of killing on a screen for all the world to see and they ate it up like nicotine.

It was so obvious, now, that D.Va was a part of Overwatch but Overwatch was not a part of D.Va; that, above all else, D.Va was the world's enabler, and if the deification of such a savage form of combat was considered entertainment, then _so be it_. 

 

Regardless of all the times she should have known, of the times she she should have been more aware or more forward, all the pieces clicked together now. Angela was only just starting to understand just how wrong she had been about D.Va all along.

 

* * *

 

There was a brief moment of blissful ignorance where D.Va paid no mind to her entrance, no mind to the soft thud of the bundle of clothes falling to the floor, the hiss of the door sliding shut behind her, no mind to the way the hot, moisture-laden air turned to ice when Angela realized what she was looking at.

There was a brief moment of innocence where the young soldier was unaware of the doctor's presence, where Angela didn't move and D.Va continued picking at the burned, scabbing flesh of a freshly burned elbow, likely from their previous mission, the recapture of a previously ship-jacked freighter.

There was a moment where the world came to a standstill, slowing until it came to a complete and utter halt. There was a moment where the air held its breath and the only sound in the quiet was the faint dripping of leftover water from a nearby shower head.

And then, quick as a bullet, everything whirled back into focus.

Angela was swift across the tiles, her footsteps heavy and hard, and when D.Va finally realized she was no longer alone, it was already far too late.

She seized the elbow more roughly than she anticipated, her narrowed, icy gaze picking over the raw skin with nothing short of fury. D.Va was staring at her with a mixture of befuddlement, shock, and fear.

The burn wasn't as severe as it could have been, only a grade one with a few spots severe enough as to be classified as grade two, but the fact that D.Va had managed to hide it in the seventeen hours since mission debrief was both appalling and angering.

Eventually, the doctor forced her gaze away from the burn and onto the rest of the young soldier's exposed skin, and her heart plummeted at what she saw.

All those months ago, when she had taken that first physical exam, she had seen a fair number of D.Va's scars, namely the ones on her arms and legs. Thin cuts from bullet grazes and a couple of smatters from mortar. She remembered those scars— she could see them, now, white dots and dashes on an otherwise unmarred figure, but that wasn't what saddened her. What ate at her most was how many _more_ there were now.

What that meant for her was that D.Va had been hiding injuries the entire time she'd fought alongside Overwatch. That meant that D.Va, after every mission she completed, had _lied_ about the extent of her hurt. That also meant that Angela had failed, again, to recognize the pain of her teammates, and do something about it. She had been too afraid of doing anything that she let this continue, and the guilt that followed the realization was swift and staggering.

In some ways, it was her fault. In others, the fault was D.Va's alone.

There had to be a reason why D.Va would do this to herself. Was it mistrust? Was it masochism? Was it something buried in the unfounded past that D.Va was so determined to cover? It washed over her in waves and made her feel sick to the stomach just thinking about it.

However, more prominent than the guilt and gut-wrenching failure that threatened to choke her, there was _anger._ She knew not exactly why, whether this anger was directed more at herself or at D.Va, but it was hot and bitter in the back of her mouth, and the fire rose to her lips when she opened them to speak.

"I'm going to shower," she said, slow and calm and thick with rage, and despite the heat behind the words they were delivered with an icy finish. "When I'm done, we're going to head back to my office, and we're going to talk." Because this was not a conversation that needed to happen in a small, steamy shower room, and Angela wanted to have a better look at that burn to make sure it hadn't gotten infected. No matter how angry she was, she had to keep her priorities straight.

D.Va opened and closed her mouth several times, glancing around in a nervous panic as if looking for an escape route. This person she was seeing was far different from the image she was used to— almost a polar opposite, and that was almost more troubling than the injuries. It seemed D.Va had a lot more to hide than Angela had initially thought.

Reluctantly, the doctor released the younger woman's elbow and backed off. She was still angry, but her mind had already set to stamping that anger into the dirt. There was no place for anger in such a tentative situation as this. She knew what the repercussions of such untempered emotion could bring.

She left D.Va in the open part of the room and paced off to the showers, which turned on automatically at the sound of her voice.

"Low pressure, 35 degrees Celsius."

Angela stripped herself of her clothing and stepped into the water. It washed over her exposed skin and plinked down onto the sensitive plating of her spine. The lukewarm water was refreshing, and it helped immensely in clearing her thoughts.

What reason would D.Va have to conceal her injuries? Surely, there was nothing to gain in such a meaningless task. Scars, perhaps, but D.Va didn't seem like the kind of person to be a willing masochist. Lest Angela be wrong in that presumption, too.

 _But,_ but she recalled— there had been fear in the younger woman's gaze when Angela had walked away, hadn't there? Was D.Va afraid of Overwatch? Of what they would think? Was she afraid of _Angela?_

Fear certainly played a part in it, but Angela didn't think that was the whole story. There was certainly more to it than fear, because otherwise D.Va would not have fought so vehemently against them at every turn.

Did she have something to prove? Based on Angela's earliest assumptions that she had admitted to Fareeha, that the young soldier operated solely in the defense of her ego, it _was_ a likely factor, but that, too, felt wrong. Then again, just thinking about the terrorized, aimless face D.Va had made before Angela left felt _wrong_ to even think about.

It was a face with which Angela was intimately familiar, but on D.Va, it looked... _foreign._ It didn't look like D.Va at all, or at least, it didn't look like the D.Va she knew.

It was startling (and alarming, and enraging, and terrifying, and confusing, and—) to realize just how _little_ she knew.

Angela shut off the water with a heavy sigh. Lingering any longer would do her no good. Putting off the conversation she desperately needed to have would do her no good either. There was no other way to work around this other than to just rip off the bandaid.

She dressed quickly, only going as far as running the towel through her hair until it was only slightly damp, and then exited the stall.

She didn't know what she expected to find when she left the dressing room to the open area beyond. Perhaps she'd been expecting D.Va to be gone, because Angela couldn't have made her stay if she tried. Perhaps she'd been expecting her to fall back into that familiar facade, the one with the double-edged smile and the wild, unreadable eyes and the pink-striped face.

Angela was not, however, expecting to find her in the middle of a panic attack.

D.Va was hunched over herself, curling inwards in a way that made Angela feel far too big and threatening in the dimly lit room. Her hands were fisted tightly against her legs, knuckles bare and white and revealing faint, blue bruises across their surfaces that she hadn't noticed before. Her bangs shadowed her face from view, but Angela could see the way her mouth hung open, the way her chest moved in small, convulsing movements, gasping and choking on a closed throat and a heart kicked into overdrive.

Angela knew panic attacks well in every way, shape, and form. It was an instantaneous, almost instinctive reaction to swoop in and take those trembling, tense hands and open them before they broke the skin beneath the nails, to take those hands against her chest and breath slow and even until D.Va's lungs moved in time.

"Talk to me," Angela said, slow and soft in the aftermath, sitting down next to her on the bench. D.Va wasn't calm, not yet, but she had regained some semblance of control. The younger woman hesitated for a moment, her gaze focused still on the bare skin of her knees, and then spoke, strangled and shaky and fast.

"I'm not— I'm not D.Va. Well, I _am_ , but I'm not. D.Va's... Part of me? But not all of me. S-she's not me. My name is—" she choked, swallowing hard, sucking in a breath through her teeth. Her eyes were so raw, so haggard, and the raised white ridges coating every inch of her skin made her look smaller when she curled in. "M-my name is Hana Song. It's who I was. Am. My name before the draft. She's still in here, somewhere. D.Va's stronger." The younger woman laughed, weak, forced. "Fuck this. I don't— I need to, but I—"

A deep breath. D.Va held a hand to her head, as if physically pained by whatever thought had occupied her. Angela's first thought was immediately split-personality disorder, followed closely by PTSD. Perhaps the second had led to the first. She wouldn't be surprised— a soldier by seventeen, over 300 solo kills by nineteen. Trauma was inevitable, and if it were this severe, Angela wasn't surprised. She hadn't known, of course, but the news wasn't startling.

D.Va— Hana— Angela didn't know who she was talking to, here— looked up at her, then, eyes red and wet and tired and scared and so many things she didn't want to see.

"I'm not— I'm not okay. And I don't know how to start."

"Well," Angela said, shifting so that she could better face her. "Let's start at the beginning. It said your base of operations was in Busan, yes? Were you born in there?"

"Yeah, actually. Born and raised." She snorted, bitter. "If you could call it raising."

Angela blinked, heart sinking at the implications, though she didn't want to jump to conclusions. "What do you mean by that?"

Hana grimaced, muttered something akin to 'fuck it' under her breath, and leaned forward, fists clenching once more— a self-comforting gesture. "My parents— they weren't— fuck. They were shitty parents, alright? Did me a number. But I listened to them anyways because— fuck, I don't know. I was scared of them. I was _terrified_." Her breath caught in her throat, eyes growing wide and faraway. "They didn't believe in friendship or teamwork. Said I had to be the best, nothing else. Anything less resulted in... less humane methods of teaching your children to be good. So I gave up, y'know? Because it hurt, disappointing them, and it hurt being disappointing, s-so I stopped trying. My grades were great but I was _dying_  inside. Then once day..."

 

Hana talked for hours, and Angela listened, because it was all she could offer Hana to make up for what she'd done.

Hana told her of life in Busan, of growing up in a house made of glass and parents that were more like tormentors. She told her of the eSports ad and what it was like gaining fame, especially when you had to keep your parents from finding out, and what that kind of strain did to a person. She told her of the war drafts to put down the colossal Omnic, what training was like and about the man with the the yellow eyes.

She told her of the instructors and their mercilessness, of their bias against omnics and the riots. She told her about the riot in Seoul; about the dreams it left in its wake.

She told her of harsh winters on the ocean, of the stomping feet and the way the ice shook with every step, of the life of a commander and all the scars such a position left.

Hana told her well of death— described, in great detail, the deaths of Han "kimshine" Kim, Oum "Yoonosan" Taeyoon, and Jee "12HD" Sang. How Kim had fell. The screaming metal of Taeyoon's emerald green MEKA. The tremble in Sang's voice as he'd told her to leave him behind. He was dead anyways. Hana told her of Choi "langbizon" Areum, of the blood and the crack of bones and how it had felt to see her white gloves go red when she peeled the younger soldier from the debris.

Hana told her of drowning. It took her a while. She told her how it felt to sink and not feel, the way water rushed and choked and then stilled, how cold it had been. She told her the way she kicked herself awake at night.

It ended with a recount of her reassignment to Overwatch. The anger with which Hana recounted the tale was understandable, Angela found. She hadn't realized how much Hana had been hurting until now, how far the young soldier had to go on the long road of recovery.

Well, a start was a start, and Hana deserved to heal.

 

In the quiet dark of a shower room, in a small base along the coast of Iceland, at 3:43 in the morning, D.Va's reign ended, and Hana Song's began.

 

When Angela got back to her room, unrested and exhausted, the sun was starting to rise in the windows lining the hallways. She hadn't anticipated her partner being awake when she returned, but she was— Fareeha sat on their shared bed, very much awake and scrolling through a datapad aimlessly, though she looked up upon Angela's entrance.

"Hey. Where were you?" her partner asked softly, taking her hand and guiding her to sit next to her on the bed.

Angela searched Fareeha's face for a long, quiet moment. Fareeha merely peered back at her, brows furrowed in concern, her thumb gently tracing the skin of her knuckles. It was difficult not to be immediately honest with her, but Angela wasn't sure what was safe to say. Hana had explicitly told her to keep quiet, but her and Fareeha had mutually agreed when they cemented their relationship that secrets were absolutely not allowed.

A fine line to walk— to sacrifice one relationship for the sake of another. Was it worth the lie?

"I ran into D.Va in the shower room," she murmured, because, really, was this not for the greater good? Hana hadn't told her not to tell anyone, just to keep quiet about the ordeal, and Fareeha deserved to know after worrying after the young pilot for so long. "We talked. _Schatz_ , we— we were _wrong_. About everything."

Fareeha's eyes widened, her mouth parting slightly in shock. "Oh. Do you want to talk about it?"

Angela had to force her gaze away at that. "I'm not sure... I'm not sure if she'd want me to. I don't think she gave me her consent. But we were wrong, Fareeha. D.Va's not— she's not _D.Va_. Her name is Hana Song and she's been _hiding wounds_ from me after every mission and she's... lost. Hana and D.Va, they aren't— they aren't the same person. Hana is the fragment of her history she's kept so well-hidden from us. D.Va is just who we've been seeing."

Fareeha pondered this information for a moment, continuing her silent, soothing ministrations upon Angela's hands. "Thank you for telling me," she said, finally. "What would you like me to do?"

Angela paused. The world swayed lightly— it hit her, then, that she hadn't slept in 28 hours. "Talk to her," she murmured, slumping against Fareeha's shoulder with a heavy sigh. "You are much better at talking than I am."

Fareeha laughed, carefully adjusting her grip to drape an arm around Angela's shoulders and pull her just that bit closer. " _Habibti_ , we can both talk just fine. You are doing it now, after all."

Angela grumbled under her breath and tucked herself further into the crook of her partner's neck. " _Schatz_ , I can drone, and mumble, and prattle, and murmur, but I cannot _talk_ like you do."

Fareeha considered this for a moment, and then smiled. "All right, I will. Don't worry. But we should give her some time to recover alone. I can't imagine it would be easy talking about such things. In the meantime, you need to get some sleep, love."

Angela hummed noncommittally, tracing aimless shapes onto the broad expanse of Fareeha's back. "Stay with me?"

Her partner exhaled into her hair, the sound just shy of a laugh. "Always."

 

It didn't take long for sleep to find her, and by the time she woke up again, Fareeha was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys remember what next chapter is
> 
>  
> 
> also what angela meant by 'talking' was the fact that angela could say words well but fareeha could talk to and connect with people better. it was a play on words that i had fun with in the draft and decided to keep.
> 
> \- ace.


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